Serious Fraud Office looks for clues in America as it sheds the Clouseau image

Share via

It takes a special kind of criminal to try to steal from the head of the Serious Fraud Office. Yet Richard Alderman, who has just been appointed to run the government agency that fights fraud in cases involving more than £1million, has been duped twice.

On the first occasion, the 55-year-old barrister found that a fraudster had used his bank details, which showed up as an odd item on his monthly statement. The second time, he received a letter in the post, supposedly handwritten by an African girl pleading for a small amount of money to help her to start